


Step ladder

by lilyanna



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Universe, Cuddling & Snuggling, Early Mornings, Established Relationship, Fluff, Height Differences, It's mostly just really fluffy and cute, Johnten is established, Kissing, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Seo Youngho | Johnny is a Sweetheart, not very much though, some making out, they're both whipped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:01:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyanna/pseuds/lilyanna
Summary: Being short doesn't bother Ten. It really doesn't. That is, until the members have a realisation and it becomes all he can think about. Luckily, Johnny is there to lift him up.





	Step ladder

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the pictures of Johnny carrying Ten on his shoulders at KBS Gayo and this happened because I have no self control. This is my first fic (that I'm publishing anyway) so I really hope you enjoy! ^^

It didn’t bother him THAT much. Ten knew there were several perks of being short. There’s scientific evidence to support that shorter people are better at gymnastics, and many times also at dancing, even if it was simply because it was easier for them to have full control over their limbs. He knew the fans found it endearing, often seeing comments online about how cute it was that he was so “tiny”. It could be entertaining at times, because he could use his height as an excuse to cut other member’s heads out of the shot during self cam. Some of the members got really annoyed when he did, which amused him to no end.  
And he knew that Johnny loved it. Their height difference was adored not only by the fans, but also by them themselves. It could be inconvenient at times, sure, Johnny having to crouch down or Ten having to stand on his tiptoes, but it was cute, and often funny. And if it made Johnny happy, which was really all that mattered.  
So no, being short doesn’t particularly bother Ten most of the time. That is, until Donghyuck decides to bring it up.  
“Ten-hyung” He says one day. He was sitting across the room from where Ten was jokingly trying to put clips in Renjun’s hair, the younger boy swatting at his arms to keep him at bay. “Isn’t Renjunnie taller than you now?”  
Ten frowns, taking a step away to assess the Chinese boy, who’s still trying to get the remaining clips out. “I don’t think so.”  
“Stand together, stand together!” Shouts Chenle from across the room, rushing over to examine them.  
Reluctantly, Ten and Renjun turn around so that they’re standing back to back, the heels of their feet touching. Ten wouldn’t like to admit it, but he can’t help but stretch his back out, trying to make himself as tall as possible. He couldn’t be shorter than Renjun. He just couldn’t be. Renjun was tiny, and cute, and so much younger than Ten anyway, there was no way he’d surpassed him. And yet Chenle makes a loud, delighted sound, something between a laugh and a shout, and he feels a sense of dread creeping up his spine.  
“It’s true!” The round-faced boy exclaims with a lot more glee than Ten considers necessary.  
“Oh my god it is.” Hyuck has a smug expression on his face, probably pleased with himself for having been the first to realise. “It’s like barely a centimetre but I’m pretty sure Renjun’s taller.”  
Ten steps away as fast as possible, but before he can escape to another room and pretend that the conversation had never taken place the rest of the Dreamies appear, with Taeyong and Doyoung in tow. Taeyong eyes the small group that’s forming curiously.  
“What are you lot up to?” He asks.  
“Hyung get this!” Chenle announces. “Renjun-hyung’s taller than Ten now!”  
A faint grin creeps onto Taeyong’s lips and he glances at Ten, who’s, ironically, trying to make himself as small as possible in the hopes he just disappears. “Oh really? I guess that means that Ten’s our shortest member now.”  
“Am not!” Ten protests. He’s aware he sounds a bit like a small child whining, but he really can’t help it. “I’m at least taller than Taeil-hyung!”  
“That’s not exactly difficult.” Hyuck rolls his eyes. “My little brother’s taller than Taeil.”  
“Actually according to our official profiles I’m taller.” None other than Taeil himself chimes in, materializing out of nowhere. “By about a centimetre I think.”  
Ten feels his shoulders deflate and he groans, burying his face in the heel of his palms. Taeyong chuckles softly and gives him a quick pat on the back.  
“Anyway guys, I was coming here to tell you that we’re all needed on stage.” He says. “Like right now. So come on, let’s get a move on.”  
This is followed by of whines and protests, but the room slowly empties out, the members doing some last touch-ups to their outfits and make-up before filing out the door in groups and pairs. Ten’s left alone for a moment, deep in thought. He lets out a sigh, feeling like another unnecessary weight has just been placed on his shoulder, and picks up his jacket to follow after the others. The door closes behind him with a bang a little louder than he’d intended, and he winces at the surprise glances that passers-by shoot his way.  
Nobody else ever mentions it again. Even Renjun himself seems to have forgotten about it, never asking to get his height measured. But still, it persists at the back of Ten’s mind, weighing him down. And for some reason he just can’t let it go.

 

“Watcha’ doing babe?” Johnny mumbles as he walks into the kitchen. He woke up barely ten minutes ago and looks an absolute mess, hair like a bird’s nest and wearing nothing but boxers and an old white shirt. His voice has that slight early-morning drawl to it which Ten absolutely loves. It makes his lisp ever more prominent, particularly when he speaks English.  
“Making some coffee.” Ten glances over at him and smiles before quickly recentering his attention on what he was doing. “You want some?”  
Johnny just hums non-committedly, which his boyfriend takes as a yes. A few seconds later Ten feels a pair of arms slink around his shoulders and the weight of someone’s chin on the top of his head, and he can’t help but giggle. It’s become a recent habit of Johnny’s, resting his head on top of Ten’s, and it’s absolutely adorable because he can’t really reach, not quite, so he has to stand on his tiptoes to do so. Yuta had joked the other day that that was the only time Johnny ever had to make himself taller for anything and all of them had laughed. The Thai man turns his head to place a quick kiss on the other’s cheek, earning himself a soft chuckle in return.  
Hyuck makes a gagging noise from out in the hallway. “Can you two stop being so gross so early in the morning? Some of us are trying to uphold an image here.”  
The sound of Yuta laughing heartily in the living room reaches them and Ten sticks his tongue out at Hyuck, who does it right back.  
When he opens the cupboard Ten almost whines out loud. Someone’s moved the packet of brown sugar to the top shelf. It was probably Jaemin, he puts way too much sugar in his drinks anyway, the dancer thinks as he tries to reach up but fails miserably. He feels Johnny’s weight shift off he as he strains up, his fingers falling short by a couple of centimetres. It’s always a couple of damn centimetres.  
“Want me to get that?” Johnny mumbles in his ear, peering up at the shelf. He says it quietly enough that none of the other members hear, and in any other moment Ten would have been ever so thankful for that, but right now he can’t bring himself to feel anything other than annoyance.  
“N-no…” He says through gritted teeth, one hand now clutching onto the front of the counter to keep his balance as the tries to grab the sugar with the other. “I’ve… got it…”  
“Really babe, I don’t think you can reach… Just let me get it okay?”  
“I SAID I’VE GOT IT!” Ten half-shrieks, much much louder and angrily than he’d intended.  
Johnny takes a step back, startled, pulling his hand quickly away from where he’d also been reaching out for the brown package. Ten stands there frozen, shocked by the sound of his own voice, and feels horrible guilt begin to creep up on him when his boyfriend turns to stare at him, wide-eyed and eyebrows raised. A couple of curious faces pop round the doorframe, probably wondering what all the noise was about. The timer on the coffee machine pings loudly amongst the prolonged silence. And God, Ten just wants the ground to swallow him whole.  
“Ten…” Johnny begins, but before he can say anything of any importance the dancer puts his head down and bolts out of the room, receiving several loud gasps from the members who hurry to step out of his way.  
“What was that about? Are you guys okay?” Jaehyun asks, with so much genuine concern in his voice that Johnny wishes he could reassure him that everything’s fine.  
But all he can do is shrug and shake his head, perplexed, before rushing out of the room to look for Ten.

 

He finds him surprisingly not in his own room, but in Johnny’s, buried amongst the sheets. The American stands in the doorway for a couple of minutes, unsure of what to do, until the overwhelming concern he feels, and the eyes of the members in the hallway boring into his back, compel him into the room. He closes the door softly behind him, and at the sound of the click the sheets shift.  
It’s not the first time that Johnny and Ten have fought. They have almost opposing personalities, and very different opinions on a lot of things, some of which both of them felt very strongly about, so it wasn’t that rare for them to argue. In fact, they used to have disagreements pretty often as trainees, even though they did eventually become good friends. The couple of months before they’d got together had been a complete mess, in which they’d both been too stubborn to admit their feelings for each other out loud and would fight about absolutely anything and everything. Looking back on it, it had been stupid, but at the time it had almost been like pretending to hate each other would have been easier than admitting how in love with each other they were. Surprisingly it had been Doyoung who had eventually stepped in, deciding that enough was enough, and had locked the two of them in a practice room and refused to let them out until they ‘sorted their shit out’. The managers had been so mad that day, but it had been worth it.  
It wasn’t even the first time they’d fought since they’d become a couple, although most of those arguments were either trivial or compensated by a very large amount of making out to make sure everything was forgiven, so neither of them minded that much. But this, it felt different.  
Usually when they had a disagreement both of them knew what it was about, and they would argue and shout at each other for a bit and then that would be that. This time Johnny has no idea what had even happened, what he’d done wrong. It had come out of nowhere. He didn’t know how to apologize because he didn’t really know what he was apologizing for, or if he was even apologizing for anything anyway. Maybe this was a personal issue of Ten’s?  
He takes a couple of deep breaths to try to stop himself for panicking and makes his way over to the bed. It creaks when he sits down to the left of the pillow. He makes a mental note to get someone to look at that later. The mound of sheets and covers moves again.  
“Hey baby.” He says as softly as he can manage. The mound shuffles. “You okay?”  
Johnny reaches a tentative hand out to pull down the top of the covers. Ten is laying on his side, cuddling a pillow with his whole body, his face buried in the top of it. He peers up at Johnny through his eyelashes but doesn’t move.  
“Ten.” Johnny tries again, slipping to the floor so he can kneel by the bedside. “Come on, tell me what’s wrong.”  
“You wouldn’t understand.” His voice is muffled by the pillow as he nuzzles into it even further, obscuring up to his forehead.  
“Try me.”  
Ten seems to consider this for a moment, and then he sits up suddenly, in one swift movement, without letting go of the pillow. He pats the space on the bed in front of him and Johnny clambers onto it, sitting cross legged on top of the sheets. They sit face to face but Ten refuses to look at him.  
“You’re going to think I’m being childish.” He says. Johnny shakes his head in a way which he hopes is reassuring. “But it’s just that Hyuckie and Taeyong-hyung said something a few weeks ago and it’s been bothering me ever since. And it’s just so dumb you know? Because I know they’re right and it’s not like what they said was particularly mean or anything like that. I just… don’t like it.”  
“What did they say?” The American asks. He manages to detach one of Ten’s hands from the pillow and hold it in his own, starting to make small circles on the palm with his thumb.  
“That I’m the shortest member of NCT now.”  
Johnny looks up at him wide eyed. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it. But the deep pout on the dancer’s face tells him he’s completely serious about it. It’s all he can do stifle a laugh, but it turns into a sort of snort.  
“See!” Ten shouts. He stops hugging the pillow and instead starts using it to hit Johnny’s arm when he starts laughing freely, raising himself onto his knees to be able to hit harder. “I knew you were going to laugh at me! I knew it! You think I’m just being silly don’t you?!”  
“That’s not it!” Johnny raises both hands to his side in an attempt to protect himself from the endless attack. “It’s just…”  
“Just what?!” Another blow.  
“I just think you’re really cute!” He manages finally.  
The hits stop coming immediately. Ten blushes a deep shade of red and sits back down quickly, a small ‘oh’ escaping his lips. Johnny laughs again, but it sounds sweeter this time, softer. He reaches over and grabs both of the other’s wrists, then uses his weight to pull both of them down onto the bed. Ten doesn’t hesitate to cuddle up to him, burying his head in the crook of his boyfriend’s neck. It smells of expensive aftershave and a whiff of that honey shower gel that Ten’s mother had sent over from Thailand, which somehow Johnny has ended up using most of, despite the fact it lives in Ten’s room. He gets a strong temptation to unbutton Johnny’s shirt, so he can feel his skin against his own, but decides against it. That can wait for later.  
“What’s so bad about being short?” Johnny asks. He has one hand around Ten’s waist and the other underneath his head, and he uses the upper hand to run his fingers through Ten’s hair.  
“It’s not that there’s something ‘bad’ about it, it’s just…” Ten sighs. “It’s sort of embarrassing. Being short in itself isn’t that great but all the kids are taller than me now. They’re KIDS, Johnny. I knew they were probably going to be taller than me eventually, but I thought I at least had another couple of years left. And it’s not like I can play it in my favour being super adorable and childlike like Renjun or Lele. I’m just unnecessarily small.”  
“Well _I_ think you’re adorable.” Johnny says with a smile.  
Ten just pouts at him. “Of course you do. You have to think that, you’re my boyfriend.”  
Another laugh. “Fair enough. What were you saying?”  
“Right. So” He reaches a hand up against Johnny’s chest and starts fiddling with one of the shirt buttons, moving it back and forth between his fingers but not undoing it. “I just kind of hate it you know? Not just for the physical aesthetic of it but also because it’s just not practical. Like this morning, when I couldn’t reach the sugar. I don’t want to have to ask the kids to get stuff for me, it makes me feel like a child. But I also don’t want to have to ask everyone to put stuff on a lower shelf, they’d make fun of me, I know it. They’re too afraid to make fun of Renjun but they do it to Taeil, and I’m sure I couldn’t handle it as well as he does. Maybe I should just carry a ladder around with me all the time.” He grimaces. “I just wish I was a bit taller. Like you.”  
All this time Johnny’s been nodding along without saying anything, just allowing him to let it all out. Now he takes Ten’s hand away from his shirt and intertwines their fingers.  
“You know being tall isn’t that great either.” He says. The Thai man raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. “It’s true, it’s really not. I hit my head on stuff a lot, and my neck hurts all the time from having to crouch down so often. And it makes it really hard to not stand out. Like sometimes being the centre of attention is great, particularly as an idol, but sometimes… Sometimes I’d just like to be able to blend in a little more. To go unnoticed for a while. I envy you guys for being able to do that. Oh and also” He lets out a chuckle suddenly, and Ten feels his boy move up and down with his own. “It makes it impossible for me to seem cute. My height completely kills off my aegyo game.”  
“What are you talking about?” Ten laughs, giving him a light shove with his free hand. “You’re the most lovable giant in the world. A gigantic baby.”  
“You have to think that, you’re my boyfriend.” Johnny responds, imitating Ten’s words and tone from earlier and earning himself another shove. They stare into each other’s eyes for a second and, as cliché as it sounds, Johnny swoops down for a quick kiss on the lips. “You feeling a bit better now love?”  
Ten hums enthusiastically and lifts his head up for another kiss, this one longer and deeper. “A lot better. Thanks to a certain someone.”  
Johnny smiles into the kiss but doesn’t reply, busying himself with trying to catch Ten’s lower lip between his own. The other frees his hand from Johnny’s and starts working on the buttons again. At the same time, he feels a hand push up the back of his t-shirt, fingers trailing up and down his spine and making him shiver.  
He’s just about finished unbuttoning the shirt, and his own is barely holding on around his shoulders, when they hear a loud knock on the door.  
“I’m coming in in ten seconds!” The loud disembodied voice of Taeil announces. “You better not be naked!”  
Johnny makes a move as if he’s going to get up and get dressed, but Ten decides he’s come too far to give up now. Flashing Johnny his best evil grin, he quickly pulls his t-shirt off over his head and drops it uncaringly onto the floor, and then, much to his boyfriend’s surprise, pushes Johnny onto his back and climbs on top of him, attaching their lips again instantly. It takes a moment for him to get a response, but when he does it’s almost even more enthusiastic than before.  
There’s the sound of the door opening, which they both consciously ignore, followed by a moment of silence. Then the household erupts into uproar.  
“My eyes! My eyes!!!” Someone screams dramatically. It sounds like Doyoung.  
“I told you not to be naked!” Taeil complains. “I warned you!”  
Ten hears a chorus of laughter and groans, and what sounds distinctly like Kun and Taeyong trying to stop the Dreamies from coming near the room. All the noises are soon drowned out when someone slams the door shut again, although some screams of protest can still be heard. Johnny and Ten can’t help but laugh.

“Hey.” Johnny begins sometime later.  
They’re both laying on his bed, sprawled out amongst the covers. Ten pushes a pair of jeans, probably his own, off the end off the bed with his foot, then looks up at him from where he’s laying against Johnny’s chest.  
Johnny chuckles and leans down to give him a kiss on the forehead. “I think I’ve thought of a solution for your not-being-able-to-reach-things-problem.”  
“The name of the problem needs some work.” Ten says, a mischievous glint in his eye. “But do tell.”  
“Well, you said that thing about using a ladder to reach… It’s a bit like that.”  
“I can’t carry around a ladder with me all the time Johnny.” He laughs. “Our managers would kill me.”  
“I’m not suggesting you do. I’m just saying” Johnny sweeps some hair out of Ten’s eyes and grins at him. “Why would you need a ladder when you have me?”

 

“I’m… not even going to ask.” Taeyong mumbles.  
The lot of them walk into the kitchen the following morning to find what they now liked to call ‘the menace couple’ making coffee. Which, in itself, wasn’t that unusual, except…  
“Johnny hyung.” Mark says seriously, grabbing the cereal box of Hyuck who whines in protest. “For the love of God, WHY are you carrying Ten-hyung around on your shoulders?”  
“He’s helping me get the sugar.” Ten replies matter-of-factly.  
“Couldn’t he just get it himself?” Chenle asks between mouthfuls of toast. Jisung gives him a disapproving look.  
“Ten wanted to get it.” Johnny shrugs, almost throwing Ten off balance. “I’m just helping.”  
“Like a stepladder.” Ten supplies. “An unbelievable handsome stepladder. Ladder boyfriend extraordinaire. Great kisser too.”  
“Unbelievable.” Doyoung mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes.  
Hyuck makes those fake gagging noises again and quickly exits the kitchen, followed close behind by Jisung.  
“I don’t know why you’re all so mean about it.” Jaemin sips on his drink, which barely even looks like coffee. “I think it’s cute.”  
Jaehyun nods enthusiastically. Ten blows kisses at both of them and he reaches into the cupboard and takes out the sugar. He picks it up easily, and for a moment he wonders if this is what its like to be tall. The thought makes him laugh. He’s pretty sure this isn’t really what it’s like, but it’s still a nice feeling to have for a while.  
The dancer looks down, pressing his hands into the top of Johnny’s head. The American leans back to, for once, look up at him, and smiles. And really, when he has a smile as beautiful as that, which looked good even from all the way up there, how could Ten not fall in love with him?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it <3 If you have any questions, feedback or would just like to talk to me you can find me on twitter at @rosebudaus (' v ')/


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